As many of you know I’m pretty interested in tote bags and when a friend sent me a link to a tote bag work shop, it was some thing I could not pass up, in fact I emailed them straight away just incase I would miss out, Luck as it was, was on my side, and I got myself on the day work shop, all I had to do was wait. A few sleeps later, it was the day of the course, and I headed down to Spitalfileds Market, London, where Albam clothing store is based. I met Dan, who heads up communications for the brand, and we chatted about the process and the brand and how it was set up, while things were being set up. I was handed over to Ray, who was a incredible chap, with over 40 years of experience with making, and the guy responsible for making the samples for Albam clothing, I felt like I was in good hands.

I was literally thrown in the deep end, but luckily I had a safety net in the form of Ray. Ray was brilliant, He showed me how to stitch on a binder around the fabric, which went around the pocket of the bag, and the inside edge of the tote bag to create a clean finish, as well as over lock stitch which went around the seams of the bag. Once the pocket and the bag were stitched together, the handles were sewn on, Ray trusted me enough to have a go at marking out a cross pattern for either side of the handles, trust me, t sounds much easier then it is. I sat at the sewing machine, with no experience and came away feeling I could take on anything, well, within reason. It was a real gem of a course.